I am very excited because tomorrow at 11:30 am, my Thanksgiving break starts! Another teacher and her husband are driving up to Denver, so I'm getting a ride with them to Catherine and Timothy's.
I've been planning up a storm in preparation for this vacation, because next week is my full-time responsibility week. I have almost everything sketched out or mostly formulated in my brain at this point, so that's a plus.
On Sunday afternoon I went for the best hike yet; Dowa Yalanne is the mesa directly East of the Zuni Pueblo, and I see it out my kitchen window every morning. Kathy took me for an exploratory hike. We climbed halfway up -- to the "collar" of the mesa -- and walked around half of it, trying to find another way down. We did, eventually. Sandstone is very fun to climb on because it has such good traction. And since it is such a soft rock, the rain makes beautiful ripple patterns in it. And it breaks down to the softest, finest sand you could ever wish to play in. Some is red and some is the normal tannish color that you would expect seaside sand to be. Also, I learned about the cholla cactus. It is shaped like a bunch of mini saguaro cacti growing from the same base, and when it dies it leaves a really fun-looking skeleton that is hollow inside with lots of little holes. Its fruits are bright yellow and kind of look like little peppers. :-) I love learning the flora of a new place!
Since this is a vacation week, the students have been a bit more squirrelly than usual. Yesterday was horrible -- they hardly listened to their regular teachers, let alone me. But we limped through the day and today was better, although still obviously an almost-vacation day. For students and teachers alike!
Anyways, I have one more project to prepare for tomorrow, so this is going to have to stay a short blog post. Thanks for reading!